Mysterious ways!

I have firmly come to believe that God does work in mysterious ways. For when I made the coaster calender for my friend, I did not know it would affect her so. I have not met her since I left grad school, which was way back in 2001. I had been in touch thru email, but infrequently.
And when she sent pictures of her and her new baby boy, I loved that so much that I made her a lil gift and sent it off without thinking much about it.

She called me today with the words that it reached her when she was at her lowest point. She was depressed having a personal family problem, her 4 month baby being diagnosed with hyper-thyroid at this young age and her hypertension not going away. When she got that, the first thought that came to her mind was, "at least someone loves me" And while speaking to her, I too broke down, agreeing that sometimes people who are around your 24-7 don't touch your heart as much as these Random Acts of Kindness do.



Just the fact that someone bother to send me something, not caring about international shipping, makes me feel so happy and so blessed. At least someone thought about me.
And it is my goal that I shall make and send RAK's every month this year.


Ok, on with the stamping work, I was so thrashing in water when I tried to make this card. The card look perfect in my head, the sketch was ready, the stamp set was ready, the patterned paper was at hand, and yet when I tried to put it together, I always felt something was missing. So far I still think that something is missing, but after spending 3 days on this, i'm ready to move on..
This is inspired by a sketch from Jen del Muro .. I think the card has lost the sketch somewhere..and the stamp is a generous gift from Michele. {{{{{HUGS}}}}

I used watercolor pencils to color in, my silver glitter pen. Maybe it needs a ribbon to top it off?I just trimmed off the tag individually and its done. I didn't want to cover the tags with a front panel. So i guess it doesn't qualify for the sketch, I'll try again I guess!!
If you don't succeed, try again.

I do have a question for all the cardmakers,
Do you start with a stamp set, a DP or a sketch? I have muddled myself over this a million times. I just sit with everything I have and then put it back because it does not make sense.
Please help!
Any ideas?

My First Coaster Calender

I have delayed posting this for a very long time. I had it made a long time ago and did not send it in mail. I finally sent it in mail and so I think I could post it now.

This is my first attempt at using coaster to make calendar using a tutorial by Beate on SCS. This is a picture of my friend Synthia and her lil boy Tedrick. He is her miracle baby. And I just felt like making this for her. And I used my patterned paper for the first time. And I like the way its turned out.

It says "mumma's little angel" around the photo of Tedrick, but I forgot to change the color of the word while playing around with the image in Word. So its a little hard to read. The flowers are punched out and of course, there has to be bling where i'm concerned.

I know the glitter doesn't go well with the theme, but one of my rub on letter smeared horribly, and I had to cover it up somehow. I could have used another paper to cover it up, but that was after I had smeared glitter glue all over it. Next one will be better thought of..Sorry girl.

Since I did not have any wording stamps or rub-ons, I made my own rubons. I printed them in various colors on my transparency, making sure that it was set on mirror image. The drying time is very very long..almost 24 hours before I could use it without staining anything else. But in the end, it was worth the wait. The word 'Miracle' and 'Tedrick' are the printed rub-ons.

And I have to say a very very special thanks to Monika Davis for sending me a Holiday card. My one and only holiday card, but with that she included Stamped images of Thomas Kinkade stamps and Bella! My camera battery is dead and I’ve been lazy to take a pic. But will do so very soon.

Thank you Monika, you made my day…

Hello

Just the most simplest card. I think stamping and coloring is turning into therapy for me. Gives me lot of satisfaction. I'll be doing more cards this week I think.

this card uses a modified sketch from Angel (angelosity)

I 'll do another card based on the exact sketch sometime in the week. Its fun to have so many sketches when you want to make a card!

Merry Christmas.
Will be back after Christmas eve...

New card

First and foremost, I have to say "THANK YOU" to Michele.. She is one generous lady. When I cribbed and cribbed that I did not have many stamps she wrote back that she had lots and could send me some. And true to her word, I just got a Priority Box full of wood mounted stamps!! And they are amazing! I was so speechless when I got the box, right now more than me my brother's having a blast with it. Ink it up, stamp it down..for no reason at all..just that they're cute!!
I'm still stumped at trying to find something to send to Michele. Not papercrafting stuff..
I really appreciate her generosity..Thank you once again. I'll try to put up a pic soon of all the stamps she sent me.

Hmmm... now this is the first time ever that I tried to wrap a candy! No one over here wraps candy...just gift it off. I have been watching Nichole Heady create amazing gift wrappers one after another and I was stunned. I tried my hand at it. Nothing fancy mind you..just simple stamping on the CS and when I was done, it looked great! This is a Cadbury's Dairy Milk.




And here is a card I made using one of the stamps Michele sent me. And I loved watercoloring it. I guess I'm behind times, still with water colors, but then again, that's all I have and I'm loving it.. Shivani (my only Indian stamping buddy and addict, we're both always on the lookout for who's coming back to India from the USA so we can bribe, beg or blackmail into bringing us some stamping goodies!!!!) Well, she got Copics, her wonderful sistah got her 46 copics.. Awesome.

So here's the card..


I tried to copy the coloring on the stamp itself. The pink base looked dull so used my texture plates to give it some swirls. Boy! it is hard work if you don't have a cuttlebug. But still worth it.

Till then,
cheers,
Happy Holidays!!

A new criss cross

Here's the card that took me 5 days to make. Don't ask me why! My creativity is at its lowest right now. Inspite of having 3 stacks of DP i can't seem to use them.



So just used my newest Sassafrass Lass stamps, the fliparoo stamps. Too cute and I love the acrylic. It's great. Takes in ink very well. Will be ordering more..

The DP is from Nichole Heady's Digital kit. love that paper.

And the sentiment is a outline sticker.

I hope the person i'm sending it to, likes it too. I wanted to something very very special, so my dear friend this has my 5 days of effort. I do hope you like it. I'm not tell who this is going to!!

A Lil note of encouragement to a friend

ETA: Here's the card I made that's going to Gina.

Thought i'd send in some christmas wishes as well!!


Gina is a young mother of three young boys. She has started chemotherapy treatments. She is having a hard time being a mom and wife while being so sick. She really needs some encouragement!!

I'm doing my bit to send some happiness her way and sending her a card. Would love if anyone else would do that too. Here's her address
Gina Landry
9916 Longleaf
Orange, TX 77632

and you can win some blog candy too if you do that..
Check out these two posts for some candy and send some cheer..
Courtney's Blog
Sari's Blog

I normally don't do this but right at this moment i'm going thru a crisis and words of kindness and encouragement from across the globe made my day. Just random words, from strangers but yet who connected with me, helped me get through this. And so as my way of saying thank you i'm passing on my happiness to Gina.

My new box of goodies.

My mood's been down and out lately but that didn't stop my stuff from arriving that I'd ordered 2 months back. I preferred not to ship it out but ask one of my friends or anyone for that matter if they could tag it along. And yup, my stuff from Frugalities is here. And and bits and pieces from Micheal's. Sitting in India, I'm in love with that store. Don't let me go there...i'll go bankrupt.

here's a pic of my goodies..

This is all my goodies in one shot. The by pass trimmer and the waterbrush pen are from Micheal's . The rest all is from frugalities. 90$. I guess. Should suffice for 6 months. But already i'm hungry for more. Every had that happen to you? I'm just confused as to how to get good effects with texture plates. I think cuttlebug works best but that is way beyond my budget. So an embossing tool should do the trick. But is there anyother trick to get good embossed results?

Help out girls.
Not too happy with the 7 gypsies pack. A couple of papers i dont' know where and how to use, but the DCWV is fabulous. this is going to be on my wishlist. Lots more of patterned paper.



here are the only stamps that I ordered. I didn't want the alphabet ones. I wanted ones witha flourish. And guess what ...after I placed my order, they had Fancy Pants Pollen Dust on 45% discount, that is to say at 22$. Isn't that freaking bad luck???
I'll keep waiting till they have it back in stock. I want flourishes...some one got too many and wanna give it away for Christmas?? Be my Santa perhaps ??

New card

hello ya all...Happy Thanksgiving to all my friends around the world.

And I'm back...with another card..too long too late I know..my mojo is gone. Going thru the painful pangs of separation after 2 wonderful years..and what makes it worse is that neither of us is at fault. Circumstances are such that parting is inevitable. The thing I dread the most is will I be able to see him with someone else? Will have to work on that a lot.
Ever heard the saying "The worst feeling in the world is sitting next to the person you love knowing you cannot have them?" I'm going to be feeling the same feeling every day..for God knows how long.

I need strength and I pray that he gets the strength to survive. Sigh........Life sure is funny...gives you what you'd been praying for all these years and just when you begin to appreciate the gift, He takes it back. I just don't want to turn bitter, I don't want to carry hate in my heart for the people who were responsible for bringing about this breakup. I want to carry on but at the same time I wish someday they realize how much they have hurt us. I want them to feel the hurt and the pain. For the first time in my life, I regret the fact that I am an Indian, that a son had to sacrifice his future for the sake of obligations to the family. I do not know if such traditions are followed around the world, but today I wish I was in some other country, where no one else's opinion influenced your decision.

Damn it feels good to unload.

Well after all the ranting and raving, here's my card.


This uses Michelle's sketch 2 and she has really good sketches every wednesday..go hop on over and say hi to Michelle

Do you love the grey PP I found in my local store? It so shiny IRL and fabulous cobblestone look. You're gonna see more of this.

Happy Mail

Guess what arrived at my doorstep yesterday evening. This beautiful package from Monika Davis aka M.A.D stamper...I'd signed up for a an Image pay it forward.
And do you know what all this wonderful person sent...She sent me couple of house mouse images
and a set of stamps..Yipeee!! and that's not all...she even sent me a card. And you have to see the card to appreciate it..its just wonderful..(can i reveal something crazy...I kept the card on my nightstand and kept looking at it till I fell asleep) I love it so much!!

Thank you Monika for being soo soo generous.
Can you see the psychedelic embossing on the pink strip..looks gorgeous in IRL..and I did not know crystal effects looks so great on an image. Next time I order something from the US, one crystal effects is going to come..

My new favorite colors

I'm so much in love with my new set of favorite colors..White black and turquoise..so far I did not have turquoise CS but on a recent raid to my LSS I found some...and then I already had this great freebie by Pirates and Pixies which was turquoise.

So then I had decided to do Angel's birthday blog challenge..but she has 17 card sketches up already and I was too lazy..but if you're up for the challenge go check out her blog..she has some HUGE blog candy and the loot keeps going bigger and bigger..the biggest blog candy I've seen so far..
And so I found another card sketch..this time on Carla's blog. And whatever came together was fabulous. I think this is my best card yet!!

I know this is a bad pic...my camera batteries are out. And I promise to get a better pic in the morning. The sentiment is handwritten...I could have fooled ya...

i gotta thank Carla for the fabulous sketch. Thanks Girl!!ETA-- here's the pic from the cam...the colors look way different. Well that's ok..the card's gorgeous..

Until later...don't forget to leave a comment for the blog candy..one day to go..check out the posts below!